From Write-In Mayor to Governor? Mike Duggan’s Bold Independent Run

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This week on the Andrew Yang podcast.

I'm not running to be the Democrats governor or the Republican's governor. I'm running to be your governor. And if you're sick of the toxic bickering between the two parties and you want to have somebody who can work with reasonable people on both sides, I'm your choice. And it's the damnedest thing. No matter where you go in the state, there's a lot of people sick of the two party bickering and are ready to try something new.

It is my pleasure and privilege to welcome to the podcast the three term mayor of the great city of Detroit and current independent gubernatorial candidate for the state of Michigan, Mayor Mike Duggan. Welcome, Mike.

Well, I'm glad I finally made your podcast, Andrew.

Yes. Now you know you've made it, Mike.

Sure.

You and I met in Detroit. Congratulations on helping the city bounce back in epic fashion. I know a lot of folks on the ground in Detroit who think very, very highly of your leadership. But I do want people to have a sense of your background. Pre mayor, you helped turn around a hospital chain. Can you talk a little bit about your background and what led you to run for that office? Because that was a very big job. I mean, shoot, 12 years. So, you know, I feel like Detroit was on the edge.

Yeah, well, I grew up in this city and when I was coming out of law school and my classmates Were all heading for Miami or LA or New York. I just wanted to be part of doing something in Detroit. And so I worked in county government for a while, oversaw the building of the airport. If you've flown in and out of the McNamara terminal in Detroit, Built Comerica park and Ford Field, our baseball and football stadiums. But in 2004, the big hospital system here, the Detroit Medical center, which is basically eight hospitals and 11,000 employees, was in financial trouble. And I went in as the CEO, and basically, by taking a system where if you came into the emergency room, you waited three hours to see a doctor, instead of complaining about how we weren't being reimbursed fairly, we fixed the system and had everybody be seen by a doctor in 29 minutes or less, or we gave him two tickets to a Tiger game. And we improved service step by step. We grew dramatically from 11,000 to 14,000. Became the biggest employer in Detroit. And that was what I was doing in 2013 as the city of Detroit was placed in bankruptcy.

Wow. And so you said, you know what? Turning around a hospital chain, not hard enough. Let me run for mayor. People must have thought you were crazy, because I want to say you were the first white mayor in almost 40 years. Something along those lines.

I was the first white person to run for mayor in more than 40 years. But it's interesting. If there's one place in America that we've started to overcome the historic racial divisions, it's in an urban hospital. When the patient comes in the door, it doesn't matter if they're black or white. Doesn't matter the ethnic background or the religion of the doctors and nurses working on them. You tend to see people as people first and stereotypes second. And as the city fell further and further into bankruptcy, half the street lights in the city were out. You dialed 911. The ambulance didn't show up for an hour. The parks were closed all summer. They didn't even cut the grass. It was the African American employees at the hospital system who came to me and said, you need to run for mayor. And when I first heard it, I was at the time living in Livonia, a suburb on the west side. I said I'd have to move. And is an 83% black city going to consider somebody who looked like me? But I really felt like we had to give it a try. And so I left the hospital system, I ran for mayor, and I just went house to house, talking to people about their aspirations and the problems they faced.

Yeah, you won that election as a write in, which is remarkable. I do want to double down on a comment you made where you went to the University of Michigan for both undergraduate and law school, and then you stayed locally and started working in county government and helping the community in various ways. I agree with you that the majority of people who would achieve those kinds of credentials would peace out to Wall Street, Miami, you know, you name it. West coast like that. There are a lot of folks I'm sure that you went to school with that were doing that. So kudos to you for sticking around. I mean, I was on the other end of that talent flow where I started an organization called Venture for America that worked in Detroit for, like, years and years. Still have many people there. That's one of the reasons why I have such an affinity for Detroit. I remember when you won that race, too. There were a lot of people who first were just shocked that you won, honestly. But then other people were, like, interesting. Like, this guy just seems to want to roll up his sleeves and get things done. And you tackled the response time for 911, the street lights, some real quality of life issues.

Yeah, it was an interesting process, but I had the advantage of having been born here. The Detroit I knew growing up was a spectacular place, and it put the world on wheels. We had beautiful parks, and in the course of my life, I watched everything be taken away. The auto plants closed and moved out, the movie theaters closed, the restaurants closed, the neighbors moved out. And so I came with a perspective that connected with a lot of Detroiters, that I wanted to be part of bringing it back. And so I sat every night, the way I campaigned, as I said to the people of Detroit, invite me to your house and I'll show up. And they would call and invite me, and I'd go to somebody's living room, and the neighbors would bring a bunch of folding chairs, and we'd sit around with 12 or 15 people and we talk. And then one of them would invite me to their house. And I did 250 house parties. Living rooms, basements, backyards. Most nights I was the only Caucasian in the room. But when you sit with people and break bread with them in their homes, the stuff that divides us fades to the background. And what unites us came to the forefront. And I said over and over, if you're voting for me, us versus them, politics is over. This crazy process in Detroit where the mayor attacks the council, the city attacks the suburbs, the city attacks Lansing, that's all going to end. We're going to have a city where it's not going to matter if you're black or brown or white or Christian or Jewish or Muslim or gay or straight. You vote for me, you're voting for a city where everybody's welcome. And when the results came In, I carried 92% of the precincts in the city against the very popular African American sheriff. The politicians wanted to fight with each other, but the average family, they just wanted their kid to be able to ride their bike on the street without worrying about who's in the abandoned house next door. And so those are the things I did go and address.

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Showing up is a big deal. And I agree with you that when you get people in person sitting down, everyone is concerned about the exact same things and if you can help them there, they'll hear more than hear you out. I mean, you ended up winning re election for a second term and then a third term. You've been the mayor of Detroit for a solid dozen years and now you're deciding to run for governor. You must be a very, very popular Democrat. Or you were before you turned in your badge and said, you know what, I'm running for governor as an independent. So first, what prompted you to run for governor? And second, why as an independent?

Well, yeah, I got reelected. The last time was 75% of the vote in Detroit. So the people of the city have been enormously supportive of me for 12 years and the bond between us runs very deep. But we hit the point where we've had $10 billion in new investment in Detroit, including a new Jeep assembly plant that brought 5,000 jobs, a new General Motors electric vehicle plant, a New convention center, a new hockey arena. You go right down the line. A $2 billion hospital complex. I got city council and the mayor working together that we became as stable a political place in America to invest. And the strangest thing that happens when you become predictable and you aren't attacking the business community, people will come. And the unemployment rate in this city dropped from 20% down to 8%. The homicide rate got cut in half, and we started growing population for the first time since 1957. But the biggest thing is, and you're seeing this in the campaign to succeed me that's going on right now, all of the candidates for mayor are saying, I'm going to unify this city. Everybody's going to be welcome. We're going to support the business community. We're going to build on the success. Us versus them. Politics is gone from Detroit and the city is going to do great for years to come. But then I looked at Lansing and I looked at what's happening in this state, and I have never seen the relationship between Republicans and Democrats so toxic. Nothing is getting done. Everything is about how can I use this issue to get the majority, how can I use this issue to keep the majority? And in the meantime, Andrew, you've seen the numbers. You know, 60% of the children in Michigan and fourth grade don't read a grade level that's not 60% of Detroit. 60% of the children in Michigan. We're 44th in the country since 1990. Only West Virginia has done worse in population. This has been a long time decline. And I looked and said, who's dealing with the issue? And what's going on in Lansing is Republicans and Democrats arguing over partisan issues. And I thought, this is what I saw in Detroit in 2013. The people came second, the partisan fighting came first. So I thought maybe it's time to change.

A lot of Americans don't know what you're talking about, Mike. No, I'm kidding. I mean, a lot of Americans are like, we see that nationwide. I'm sure you're seeing that in the state. I have a lot of fondness for Michigan, spent a fair amount of time there. Not just Detroit, but up north in the lakes during the, the summer. It's really, really beautiful. The fact that you turn Detroit from losing population to gaining population speaks for itself. I mean, that's enormous. The fact that now businesses and families are investing their futures, but in the city. So it sounds like you decided to run as an independent because you want to break away from politics as usual and bring People together. Is that fair to say?

Yeah. You know, most big city mayors in this country are Democrats, but most, like we are in Michigan, are elected on a nonpartisan basis. So I don't run as a Democrat when I ran as mayor of Detroit, but most big city mayors are in a state where the governor's Republican or one of the legislative branches as Republican. And most big city mayors function on a bipartisan basis. You have to to get things done. You saw what recently happened at Gretchen Whitmer, who's attempting to function on a bipartisan basis with the president, and saw the blowback. But it has gotten harder and harder to sit down with people from both parties and get them to work with each other. And so in Lansing, we've had 20 Democrats, 18 Republicans. You need every single Democrat to pass a bill, which means the three or four on the extreme control your agenda. Now you've got Republicans have a three or four seat majority. The three or four extreme on the right control the Republican agenda. Of course, you see poor Mike Johnson In Washington D.C. three or four people on the extreme can throw him out of office. And what's happened in this country is that the extremes of the two parties keep pulling them farther and farther away. And if you negotiate with the other party, you're a Democrat in name only, you're a Republican in name only. It's a terrible thing to try to deal with people with goodwill on the other side. And finally I looked at this and said, somebody's gotta try and change this. The Democratic Party I joined in the 1980s was the party of the working class. We were in favor of leveling the playing field. So everybody has an opportunity. I have no idea what the Democratic Party today stands for, but it's certainly the working class of America doesn't feel like parties representing them.

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Well, in the, in the area around Detroit, what we call the Tri county area, Wayne, Oakland and Macomb, which is the Detroit media market, all the polling showing I'm winning by a big margin over whoever the Republicans and Democrats put up, people in the suburbs. Now, if you come down to Detroit nights and weekends, our streets are jammed and it's people from all over the region. This is a city that welcomes everybody. But in Michigan, you get outstate those areas up north that you used to visit earlier in your life. They don't really pay attention to Detroit. And so what the polling is showing is 55% of the people outside this market know me. They kind of know something's going on positive in Detroit. And so I'm spending my time now going to farmhouses in small towns and cities in every corner of the state. And it's, it's very similar to my experience in 2013. I go up to Traverse City, very wealthy resort area in northwest Michigan, and I sit down with them. You know what their number one issue is? It's affordable housing. They can't get the workers they need to run the ski resorts in the summer vacation areas to be able to afford to live in the area. And there's 200 people living in a tent city in Traverse City because of the housing crisis. And I say to them, there are no tent cities in Detroit. I built $1.3 billion of affordable housing in the last six years. We don't have people living in tents. Let me talk to you about how we do this. And first, they're shocked that they have tents and we don't. But second, I say, look, it's a math problem we have to make. We have to build more housing. We have to reduce the cost of housing. Here's how we do it. Every place I go in the state, I'm finding we have a lot more in common than we have different.

So you want to take your approach that's been so effective in Detroit and bring it to Lansing. And I cosigned that I agree with you that you're still introducing yourself to a bunch of folks who are outside of, you know, the Detroit metro area. You have a huge recognition leg up. And I'm sure folks know that Detroit's a success story. They might not know that Mayor Duggan has been helping to make it happen over the last 12 years. So when you introduce yourself to voters, they say, I'm sure, are you a Democrat or Republican? And then you say, neither, I'm an independent. Like, what's that reaction?

Like, yeah. So I say to them, I'm not running to be the Democrats governor or the Republicans governor. I'm running to be your governor. And if you're sick of the toxic bickering between the two parties and you want to have somebody who can work with reasonable people on both sides, I'm your choice. And it's the damnedest thing. No matter where you go in the state, there's a lot of people sick of the two party bickering and are ready to try something new. Now I have to convince them I'm the independent they're looking for. But you've seen the national numbers. 27% of Americans now, according to Gallup, are Democrats. All time low, 27% are Republicans. All time low, 53% are independents. This is how people consider themselves all time high. But voters haven't been given that choice before. And, and you know what these campaigns are like. When you start out on a campaign, the Democratic and Republican campaign managers know they start at 27%. So they say, how do we get from 27 to 51? Do we talk about our affordable housing plan or do we tell you that the other party is evil? The fastest way to get from 27 to 51 is tell them how evil the opposition is. And this is the most important election in history. And that tends to work, but it erodes the base of support for the two parties. So I'm coming along saying they're gonna have to say something more than I hate the Republicans. They're gonna have to either tell you what they're for, they're gonna have to say, I hate the Republicans and I hate the independents. Which may be what the Democrats are doing now.

Well, I do wanna share and I don't know your experience, so I certainly don't want to assume anything. But when I left the Democratic Party to become an independent, I was stunned at the negativity and hostility that I received. And meanwhile, it's like, look, I've been a Democrat for a long time. I've done a lot for the Democratic Party. And the fact that I'm leaving has nothing more to do with the fact that I think that there's a way to serve that gets us beyond the polarization and the toxicity. But holy cow, were there a lot of really weird accusations leveled my way. I have no idea whether anything like that happened to you.

So the hardcore Democrats say, if you run, you'll tip the election to the Republicans. To which I say, me, tip the elections? Republicans? We have a Republican president, a Republican Congress. That wasn't me. The Democrats did that just fine. And when you look at the vice chair of the Democratic Party, David Hogg, raising $20 million to knock off incumbent Democratic congressmen with progressives, the Democrats are tearing their own party apart. But here's the thing I did, Andrew, and this is why I'm getting so much support. After the murder of George Floyd, there was a defund the police movement. And people here were saying, defund the police, you should have fewer cops and fund violence intervention. That's what we need. As if it's a fight between the two. You could do one or the other. I said, no, we need more cops and we need violence intervention. And so what I did was gave our police officers $10,000 raises and put 350 on the street. And then I put $10 million into activist groups who were credible in the neighborhoods, who had relationships with beefing groups, who could diffuse the things. We funded both. And last year we had the fewest homicides since 1965. And I had people on the left who were angry. We like this debate about left versus right, I'm saying, but the average person doesn't care about the debate. They don't want to go to sleep at night listening to gunfire and if you unite, you can reduce that gunfire. And that's what people are buying into. And that's why there's so much momentum in this campaign right now.

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Well, I see your decision to run for governor as an independent as a real act of principle and patriotism. I think that if we can get beyond the blue versus red team sport nature of politics, then maybe we have a chance to solve our problems in a more serious and profound manner. I credit you for being a leader who has walked the walk for 12 years. And again, obviously Democrats must love you as an emblem of effective leadership and the fact that you decided to run in this way speaks to the leader that you are. I mean, one of the things that I become sad about is that I know a lot of good people within the two party system, but they have all sorts of pressure on them to parrot a particular party line in particular moments. And then they shrug and say, okay, let me do that because you know, like I'll be a team player. But then if you have enough people doing that on both sides, you wind up with the dynamic that you're trying to put a stop to in the state of Michigan. If you're running this statewide campaign of principle, I'm sure you need some resources to get the word out in parts of the state that you aren't as well known. I have personally donated to your campaign. I'd urge everyone listening this, listening to this, or watching this, if you like what you heard from Mike, please do back him because he is the most prominent independent candidate in the country in 2026. That I see. But Mike, how can people spread the word, support you, and help you give the people of Michigan a sense of your campaign?

Well, my campaign Website is easy to remember. It's mikedougan.com that's two GS. And if you could go on and donate, it will help a lot. Because while a lot of people are very supportive of having this choice, Andrew, as you know, the institutional financial support for the Republicans and Democrats is enormous. And whoever wins the Republican and Democratic primaries are going to have tens of millions of dollars of national money pour in to try to maintain that seat. And so I don't have the advantage of that big institutional money. It's really going to depend upon people who are saying, I'm tired of politics as usual. I'd like to upend the system. And if you want to see what happens when you give people a third choice, please go to mikedougan.com and help out what you can.

So if you know someone in Michigan, reach out to them and say, hey, have you heard of Mike Duggan's gubernatorial campaign? If you can spare a few dollars, please do send them Mike's way. Because Mike, to me is exactly what the country needs as a principled independent candidate who will just get stuff done. And what's ironic, Mike, is that a lot of the times you get the sense that each side would rather lose to the other side than that have an independent win because an independent kind of shames them both. It's like, oh, you know, we actually can do better.

It is absolutely the case that the two party death grip they've got in this country, they certainly want to preserve that. So they're unified against the independent. And the Detroit Free Press just ran a story that the Democratic Governors association have set like 28 freedom of information act requests trying to dig up dirt, and they've apparently created a $3 million fund to attack me because in some ways an independent is a greater threat to the parties. But this maybe will shock the parties into saying your most extremes ought not to be controlling the parties. There's people of goodwill in both parties and most of the country doesn't hate one or the other. They like people of goodwill to work together. I keep saying to my donors, I don't care if you give to the House Democrats, I don't care if you give to the Senate Republicans. Because I'm going to work with good people on both sides. But I think an independent governor has the best chance of pulling them together and getting something done.

Well, gods be to you, Mike. You were a great mayor. You still are a great mayor. I think you're going to make a phenomenal governor, and I think you can be an emblem of the politics that millions, tens of millions of Americans are craving. I'd urge everyone to go to mikedugan.com, tell your friends and let's get Mike elected the next governor of the state of Michigan. Mike, we're going to be keeping up with your campaign every step of the way, but thank you for your service, your leadership and your integrity.

Well, thank you, Andrew, for your contribution and your support. Great to talk to you.

More to come. Rooting for you, Mike.

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